I have published one-on-one interviews with more than 300 global leaders including former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, White House Senior Advisor and Assistant to the President Valerie Jarrett, and President of Harvard University Drew Faust. I have also interviewed celebrities such as American rap icon Curtis "50 Cent" Jackson and 14-time Grammy Award-winning singer, songwriter and producer Alicia Keys on their philanthropic efforts. Previously, I served as the first online editorial and partnerships manager for the Skoll World Forum on Social Entrepreneurship, a year-round platform to accelerate entrepreneurial approaches and innovative solutions to the world’s most pressing social issues.

How to Succeed in College: New Advice and Insights

When I started high school in the mid-90s, the Internet was just beginning to boom. It was as amazingly exciting as it was amazingly mysterious. It was hard to describe, and even harder to ignore. This curiosity led me to learn HTML on my own and endlessly explore ways in which I could be a part of this new virtual playground.

One day while browsing around, I came across Netflix, the world’s first and largest online DVD rental store. It seemed like a great idea at the time, so I looked for a similar online DVD rental service in Canada. Nothing.

I figured that we Canadians like a lot of the same things Americans do, including food, fashion, music and, of course, movies. Armed with my gut instinct and some seed money from my father, I launched Canada’s first online DVD rental store from home in my junior year of high school. From managing the website’s design and development, to identifying strategic partnerships online and offline, to individually responding to hundreds of customer service emails, I was truly in the thick of an entrepreneurial endeavor. The venture was indeed successful, and right before I started college, we sold the business — exactly 10 years ago. The lessons learned and insights gained from this experience were both timeless and priceless. Surely, a mastery of the digital world was my destiny, right? Not quite.

I switched majors twice in college, from computer science to business, and then from business to philosophy. Theories of software programming were extremely dense, and the difficulty I had with learning and understanding code led to my first moment of realization: perhaps the world of computer science was not for me. Switching to business because of my early entrepreneurial success, I thought I would enjoy learning the skills of accounting, marketing, strategy and operations. While interesting, I wasn’t very interested. In other words, I felt my online DVD rental experience was much more connected to the reality of how enterprises start, operate and grow.

During this time, I took an elective course titled “Moral and Political Philosophy.” It was a topic I wanted to explore further but not focus on. Soon after, this class changed my life.

It was an incredibly unique experience because in no other classroom setting had my own opinion been asked or required. There was no reason to take an intellectual stand on software programming, or on the protocol and processes of accounting. In other words, philosophy forced me to think, and it forced me to formulate a position — a rigor of mind too often underdeveloped.

When our classroom discussion turned to the ethics of war and conflict and, in particular, the morality underpinning the conduct of soldiers on the battlefield, Professor Julie Ponesse chalked this question on the board: “Is there a right way or a wrong way to kill someone?” The question sparked a never-ending series of mental gymnastics in the world of morality. Exploring issues of peace, justice, equality and tolerance followed — issues that have defined my personal and professional ambitions to date.

The lesson here is simple, especially for college-bound students: you never know where or in what setting your passions will be discovered, and so you must allow yourself the opportunity to explore and take the risk of learning something new. Your future may depend on it.

Most would advise our generation to find your passion. I would advise you to find your passions. It’s likely that you have more than one, as I do, and it’s important that you recognize when and in what setting you’re at your best.

Currently, I work at the intersection of technological innovation, international development and strategic advocacy at the World Bank, a unique marriage of interests developed since high school. Alongside this position, I regularly blog on international affairs and social change for The Huffington Post and Forbes, and frequently interview global leaders, such as the White House’s Valerie Jarrett on the advancement of women and girls, and Drew Faust, the President of Harvard, on higher education in the 21st century. And last but not least, along with a former colleague from Harvard’s Kennedy School, we’re moving at full speed to develop a global reality-TV show to highlight social entrepreneurs struggling to change the world.

The point is, do not be afraid to pursue multiple dreams and multiple passions.

Reflecting on the last five years since I graduated from the University of Western Ontario, I wanted to share a few secrets of my success to those of you heading off to college, or back to college, eager to begin anew.

Be curious. Read about the world in a way in which you are not accustomed to. For example, if you’re majoring in humanities, read Scientific American from time to time to learn about the intersection of language and music or the science of sleep loss. If you’re majoring in sciences, read Stanford Social Innovation Review to learn about philanthropy in the 21st century or social entrepreneurship in Brazil. The more curious you are in seeking new kinds of knowledge, the more creative you will be at synthesizing the complexities of our world.

Reach out. Do not be afraid to email people you’ve never met, whether professors, CEOs, scientists, technologists or otherwise — anywhere in the world — for advice. You will be amazed by how far a short note about yourself and a genuine interest in another person can take you. I cannot overstate this. Our generation is the first to have such unfettered and direct access to the hearts and minds of anyone on Earth. If you look hard enough, you will find their email.

Write better. The most valuable skill set I learned in college was to write clearly and coherently. Whether you pursue a career in business, science, technology or the arts, the ability to convey your ideas, as well as argue and persuade effectively, is simply invaluable. With this skill alone, you will be a treasured asset in any organization.

Seize opportunities for meaningful work. While in college, I put my Web-development skill set to use as an IT consultant for the university, producing and managing course websites for dozens of faculty over the years. As a graduate student at Harvard Divinity School, I worked as a research associate in justice and human rights at the Center for Nonprofits at Harvard Kennedy School, a position I undertook full-time, and negotiated a part-time completion of my studies. Do not be afraid to bend the norms of regular course loads and timeframes, for I have found that such parallel work experiences have propelled my career, knowledge and networks far more effectively than living life in sequence.

Lastly, I urge you to embrace the study of philosophy, for it will help you define who and what you wish to become, and this is perhaps the most important of all.

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Thank you for your comments. While I appreciate your advice, and perhaps some of the readers do as well, I couldn’t disagree more. Arguably, the lack of ethics, integrity and a strong moral foundation led to the near-collapse of the financial system. Engaging in responsible and ethical business practice is perhaps the most important value of our time.

And with regard to “women’s studies”, the challenge of gender equality, too, is the most pressing challenge of the 21st century–not simply for the sake of equality, but as one of the most important ingredients to reducing poverty worldwide. The two fields of study you’ve dismissed are in fact the defining issues of our time.

Lastly, with regard to the morality of conduct between soldiers on the battlefield, just war theory dates back to the 13th century with St. Thomas Aquinas. Today, with national and international conflict affecting all corners of the globe, literature such as Michael Walzer’s “Just and Unjust Wars” should be required reading in the classroom, not dismissed and forgotten.

I agree. Ethics and a strong moral foundation need to be explored more and reinforced.

Mr. Kanani, a take away for me from you wrote is that the prompt to discuss ethical dilemmas sparked a whole new form of learning for you.

I think that engagement is a key ingredient to building ethics. I’m currently interning at The Markkula Center for Applied Ethics; we’ve been using social media to spark ethics focused discussion among college students in a project called The Big Q.

Any feedback you have on our page www.fb.com/thebigq or blog www.scu.edu/thebigq is appreciated. I’ll be sure to post this article on our FB page and please feel free to share The Big Q.

I have read your blog with uncommon enjoyment from the beginning, and now I know why. Fellow philosophy major here.

I also couldn’t disagree more with michael. “My advice is to know that the world is unfair, unequal and anything but peaceful. Get over it.”

In fact, it’s not, and we do not have to. The world has gotten increasingly more peaceful and lawful over the past few centuries, in spite of all the wars still going on, and what’s more, it was not always as deadly as it was at the rise of agriculture.

Dig deeper, question everything, and don’t accept platitudes, and you can go further no matter what your area of expertise.

Thank you Rahim. Your own success proves your point. (Michael, did you notice how young Rahim is, and writing for Forbes?)

Rahim, it’s you and people like collegestudent, maggiemarsh and elizabeth who are ruining our country. Yes, I said ruining our country!

You so kind, so fair, so caring, so sweet, so understanding. Yes, you’re so much MORAL than me. Let’s all get together, hold hands and sing the Coke song.

Your advice (and I’m being generous here) is so damaging that I’m literally at a loss of words.

Rahim, it wasn’t a lack of ethics, integrity or morals that sunk house prices and mortgages. It was government policy that induced people who couldn’t afford to buy a home to buy one anyway. Why? Because it’s the American dream, and when a person owns a home, he becomes a better citizen, right? Besides that, home prices never decline!

But there’s good news Rahim, one day you’ll be older, and you’ll realize how naive you once were.

For heaven’s sake, Michael. Don’t you think you come off as a little hysterical? Ruining the country by writing about acting consciously and ethically? In spite of everything, the US (and Europe) got richer after the civil rights movement, after slavery was abolished, after worker’s rights came to the forefront. Even relatively speaking, we got richer, not to mention in absolute purchasing power.

It’s not ethical or intelligent to purchase items on credit you can’t afford or which do not generate income. A combination of moral and intellectual failures across class lines produced this problem, not an over-enthusiasm for basic morality, humanist ethics and critical thinking. Maybe stronger thought foundations could have prevented it, but nobody is suggesting we can eliminate the economic cycles just by hugging.